Cancer is the second leading cause of human death next to coronary disease in the United States. Worldwide, millions of people die from cancer every year. In the United States alone, as reported by the American Cancer Society, cancer causes the death of well over a half-million people annually, with over 1.2 million new cases diagnosed per year. While deaths from heart disease have been declining significantly, those resulting from cancer generally are on the rise. Cancer is soon predicted to become the leading cause of death.
Brain cancer is particularly difficult to treat because many common therapeutic agents are not able to pass through the blood brain barrier. Further, these tumors are often not detected until they are highly advanced. For example, the vast majority of malignant brain tumors are gliomas and astrocytomas, which are extremely lethal as the median survival from diagnoses is 12-15 months. The current clinical approaches to the treatment of gliomas and astrocytomas include a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but these approaches have not significantly improved patient survival. Thus, the development of new therapies is an important area for drug development.